This role operates under the standards, KPIs, and frameworks defined in the Success Manager Handbook. Targets and metrics referenced below are set and maintained in the Handbook and the current Capacity and Staffing Plan, not in this document, so this JD stays accurate as those numbers evolve.
The Director of Success is responsible for overseeing performance, retention, and operational excellence within a specific vertical. This role ensures that clients and Teem Members in the vertical receive reliable, cost effective, and engaged support that reflects Teem's Mission, Vision, The Teem Way, and Core Values.
This leader drives strategy, develops Success Team Leads and their teams, manages vertical level outcomes, and maintains a book of business sized to lead from the front and stay connected to the work.
This is not an ivory tower role. No leadership position at Teem operates at a distance from the work, and the Director is no exception. Staying close to real accounts, real Teem Members, and real conversations, not just dashboards and reports, is part of the job.
Leadership Philosophy at Teem
Leadership at Teem is not about solving your team's problems for them. It is about removing roadblocks and giving approvals so your team can solve them. And it is everyone's responsibility, leader or not, to deliver real value against Teem's defined outcomes, not just to follow a process for its own sake. Every recommendation the Director brings forward, up to the COO or down through the vertical, is grounded in data. Instinct and feeling are not a substitute for the numbers.
Key Responsibilities
Strategic Leadership — What the Director Owns
This is not a list of intentions. Each item below is something the Director produces, decides, or is accountable for, on a defined cadence.
- Own the vertical's staffing and capacity plan. Forecast Success Manager and Team Lead headcount against account growth, churn, and book size, and bring hiring recommendations forward before new roles are opened, consistent with how the current Capacity and Staffing Plan works today
- Own the vertical's quarterly growth and retention priorities. Reinforce the account health and expansion framework in the Success Manager Handbook as a non negotiable expectation for every Team Lead and SM, and hold them accountable for spotting expansion signals and health risks in their own accounts. The Director does not pick which accounts get attention account by account; that judgment sits with the SM and Team Lead closest to the account, and the Director's job is to make sure the framework is actually being used
- Own any vertical specific adaptation to the standard playbook. When this vertical's clients or TMs need something different from the Success Manager Handbook's default approach, the Director decides on the adaptation and brings it forward as a proposed Handbook update, rather than leaving individual Team Leads to improvise one
- Own the vertical scorecard delivered to the COO. Report retention, churn, portal adoption, and TM engagement on a monthly and quarterly cadence, with the reasons behind the numbers and the action being taken, not just the numbers themselves
- Own surfacing what's unique to the vertical to ELT, and what's shared across verticals. Bring forward patterns, risks, or opportunities, whether specific to this vertical or identified together with other Directors of Success, each with a recommended action attached, not just an observation
- Ensure all client interactions within the vertical embody Teem's Mission of delivering reliable, cost effective, and engaged virtual support
- Lead, coach, and develop Success Team Leads within the vertical, and coach Success Managers through their Team Leads
- Reinforce The Teem Way across the vertical: Customer & TM Obsession, Operational Excellence, Sustainable Thinking, Think Big & Iterate Quick
- Build a culture centered on Teem's Core Values: Ownership, Over communication, Proactivity, Relationship Based mindset
- Own the hiring standards and framework for Success Managers within the vertical, and hold Team Leads accountable for supporting hiring, onboarding, and coaching of their direct reports. The Director participates directly in the hiring process for roles within the vertical and holds final approval before any offer is extended
- Oversee performance management, coaching plans, and ongoing leadership development for Team Leads within the vertical
- Maintain a minimum of 4 to 5 direct reports at all times, consistent with Teem's standard for every leadership role, to keep leadership layers proportional to team size and avoid bloat. Depending on how many Team Leads the vertical has, the Director may also have Success Managers reporting to them directly, not only Team Leads
Operational Excellence
- Ensure the vertical meets or exceeds the KPIs and standards defined in the Success Manager Handbook, including client retention, TM retention, response times, and portal adoption
- Drive consistency in execution of processes and service standards across all accounts within the vertical
- Review account health, process adoption, and operational data to ensure accuracy, reliability, and visibility
- Manage project timelines to ensure initiatives, improvements, and operational changes are completed on time and with high quality
- Identify inefficiencies and lead improvements that enhance speed, quality, and scalability within the vertical
- Ensure the vertical fully adopts every improvement, initiative, and process change that gets rolled out, not just that it launches
Client Experience & Escalation Leadership
- Lead escalation resolution for the vertical, modeling proactive, relationship based communication and problem solving